Alex is the remarkable young man presented in this patient case study. He overcame a very noticeable facial congenital disability through a series of cosmetic surgeries performed during early childhood. These procedures replaced a large facial nevus (i.e., mole) with skin grafts taken from his Jaw and neck areas (beard zone) and forehead. Although the operations removed the dark, discolored areas, they also left the teen without a Right eyebrow and abnormal beard hair growth on the right side of his face. Inspired by Alex’s story and infallible spirit, Dr. U took Alex’s case as an eyebrow and facial hair transplantation patient pro bono through his charity organization, the Hair Peace Foundation. The teen underwent a very specialized procedure using Dr.UGraft ™ Technology to harvest leg and nape hair as the most ideal and natural matches for reproducing normal eyebrow and beard hair growth needed to create an optimally symmetrical outcome side of the patient’s face.
Article Update July 2022
Congenital melanocytic nevi affect around 1% – 6% of newborn children.
Moles from congenital nevi generally appear anywhere on the trunk or limbs, although they can appear anywhere on the body.
A Beard Hair Restoration by Hair Transplantation Helps Teen Achieve the Beard of His Dreams
Check out Dr.U’s official site – https://dru.com/Learn more about this teenager’s beard hair reconstruction procedure here – https://dru.com/how-a-beard-hair…
Background On Balloon Expansion Skin Graft Surgery To Replace Congenital Facial Nevus
Significant congenital nevi [1] are generally harmless for the most part. Yet, since they are very noticeable, individuals born with them tend to feel highly self-conscious and set apart from others. School-aged peers and even adults may not always know how to react appropriately. They may stare, make insensitive remarks, or even bully those with expansive facial moles. It is estimated that large, congenital nevi occur in one out of every 20,000 newborns.
As a young child, Alex had cosmetic surgical procedures to eliminate his dark facial mole and replace it with skin grafts from his face and neck. Acquiring these grafts required expanding the donor skin surface areas to provide for the affected (recipient) areas on his face while leaving enough skin behind to cover the original areas.
These goals were achieved for Alex using a tissue expansion technique using a balloon expander. This method is commonly used to repair skin surfaces affected by burns and other disfiguring wounds. The balloon expander is placed under the skin causing it to stretch and enlarge its original surface area.
Alex’s surgeons first removed the nevus so that scar tissue could form and take its place. The skin grafts derived from the tissue expansion were then used to cover the remaining scarred areas left behind from the nevus removal.
Facial Hair Transplantation Before Photos- Facial Asymmetries Due To A Missing Eyebrow and Abnormal Beard Growth on Right Cheek
The balloon expansion technique was performed on the neck and the upper part of Alex’s forehead. Replacing his facial nevus with these tissue areas eliminated his right eyebrow. Also, the grafts derived from the beard area continued to produce hair. However, this growth occurred on his cheek instead of the typical beard region. The patient had to shave the right side of his face constantly.
Dr.U recommended using a laser to remove the undesired hair growth permanently. Laser energy is applied to the hair follicle, causing it to enter a permanent telogen resting phase. Not only does this eliminate unwanted hair, but it also prevents new hair from growing.
Next, Dr. U Decided to reconstruct the patient’s right eyebrow and standard beard hair patterns to be identical to his left side. Not only does this involve inserting follicles at the appropriate angles and orientations, but it also ensures that the hair’s thickness is accurate.
Regular head hair is noticeably thick compared to the thinner hair type already in Alex’s eyebrow and beard region on the left side of his face.
Dr. U recommended using leg and nape hair to replicate a natural-looking thickness to help achieve the most optimal symmetry possible for this patient’s facial hair transplantation. However, safely acquiring these unconventional hair follicles for permanent, long-term growth requires a specialized approach to overcome the issues using conventional FUE hair transplant punches.
Procedure Photos – Dr.UGraft ™ Technology Safely Harvest Leg and Nape Hair Follicles For Facial Hair Transplantation, Sideburn Hair Transplant, and Eyebrow Reconstruction Surgery in Los Angeles Teen
Thus far, head hair has been widely used as donor grafts in conventional hair transplantation procedures. Yet, due to its thickness, it may not be the best choice for all applications. In Alex’s case, the selection of thinner hair types was necessary when his rig, ht eyebrow, and beard region must match the other side of his face. Yet these donor follicles required more advanced means for their extraction.
The softer characteristics of leg and nape hair are undoubtedly capable of helping the transplanted growth on the right side of the face look more like the left.
Why Leg and Nape Hair Must Be Extracted Through A More Advanced Form FUE Hair Transplant Surgery
To serve as viable hair transplant grafts, nape and non-head hair follicles must be harvested using specialized extraction technology. FUE punches to date are severely limited when removing hair grafts from atypical sources. This is why body and nape hair is not universally available for most hair transplant procedures. Using essential FUE punch devices for these donor types will incur a significant risk of graft transection.
The explanation of transected grafts in FUE hair transplant surgery has been widely attributed to hair shaft curvatures. When considering this explanation using a primary cylinder-shaped punch, straighter scalp hair that emerges more perpendicularly from the skin offers a more direct route to the follicle, which is easier to determine.
According to this view, any curvatures or bends in the hair shaft would present a winding, unpredictable trajectory if the practitioner chooses to use a general FUE device. In this scenario, such a punch would be more than likely to cut the graft.
In theory, this paradigm seems to make perfect sense. But in actual reality, it fails to explain why unexpectedly low transection rates are possible in patients with very tightly curled hair. Through his own direct experience with patients of many different ethnicities, Dr.U has concluded that the overlooked variable of skin thickness correlates much more strongly with graft transection compared to hair shaft curliness. A given speed and torque (i.e., strength) for a rotary punch may not produce enough impact on very thick skin, causing the need for extra measures to free the graft, which can end up damaging it. Likewise, the established speed and torque on very soft skin can exert a disproportionate impact that tears the protective bulk surrounding the follicular unit.
These game-changing revelations formed the basis of the engineering behind his Dr.UGraft ™ Intuitive FUE technology. The effectiveness of this instrumentation for producing meager transaction rates has been illustrated across Dr. U’s extensive history of successful patient outcomes, marked by high satisfaction due to the attainment of long-term growth coverage.
Dr. U’s intelligent punch device has been built to exhibit distinct behaviors in response to varying degrees of skin thickness. These phenotypes are found in different ethnicities and within the same individual on different donor hair sources found throughout the body. Based on how the punch reacts when excising downward into different skin types, the operator can adjust the speed and torque parameters to determine a safe extraction mode that would reduce graft transaction rates for the patient to the lowest possible levels.
Nape and Leg Hair Restores Eyebrow and Beard Symmetry for Facial Hair Transplantation
Once Dr.U harvested his targeted quantity of leg and nape donor hair grafts, the next phase of Alex’s facial hair transplantation procedure was to insert these follicles to reproduce natural contours and growth patterns by modeling these characteristics found on the left side of the face. Establishing a quintessential mirrored symmetry was the biggest challenge for this aspect of the surgery. Yet achieving this pivotal point would be a significant milestone toward a more regular and natural-looking appearance for the patient.
Before and After Photos of Dr. U’s Right Eyebrow and Beard Construction For Countering Congenital Birth Defect
These side-by-side, before and after comparison photos of the facial hair transplantation highlight the final symmetrical effect achieved by Dr. U’s reconstruction of the patient’s right eyebrow and facial hair.
The inclusion of nape hair helped render a more true-to-life-coarse hair texture for the final facial hair transplantation results seen on the face’s left side.
Video – Eyebrow and Facial Hair Transplantation Procedure For Congenital Nevus Teen
In this video, you can learn more about this patient’s experience with Dr. U’s reconstruction of his beard and eyebrow.
Dr.U Creates New Eyebrow and Beard For Congenital Nevus Teen, Using Leg and Nape Hair
Please visit Dr.U’s main site: https://dru.comMore details about this patient’s case can be found here: https://dru.com/hair-surgery/dr-us-eyebrow-and-beard-…
Overall, the patient is immensely pleased with his new eyebrow and the refined mature look that his completed beard helped to produce for his appearance. If you are in the greater Los Angeles area and are considering facial hair transplantation performed by Dr.U, send us your photos and the details of what you’d like to achieve through our complimentary online consultation form.
Frequently Asked Questions – Facial Hair Transplantation
I’ve heard that nape hair may not last long term. Is this a good choice for a hair transplant performed on the eyebrows, beard, head, or other areas?
Conventionally, the use of nape hair has been generally avoided because it has shown to be non-permanent in some patients. On the other hand, nape hair can last long term in other individuals. Dr.U has developed a reliable assessment known as the FUE Shave Test, which can determine when nape hair can or cannot be used.
A study that illustrates the effectiveness of this evaluation has been published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal. On a shaved male head, Dr.U has discovered that it is possible to observe hair distribution patterns accurately to indicate whether it can be expected to last permanently for a particular patient.
Based on his own experience, Dr.U has also been able to conclude that the majority (i.e., 75-80%) of male hair loss patients are eligible for the usage of nape hair. His FUE Shave Test makes it possible to more precisely determine who can or cannot qualify as candidates, rather than grouping all patients into the same category.
Why is the Dr.UGraft ™ Technology considered to be intuitive?
The Dr.UGraft ™ intuitive FUE device, also known as the intelligent (i) punch, is regarded as intuitive because its performance and behavior have been engineered to be customizable for the skin anatomy of different patients, rather than operating through a single, one-size-fits-all modality.
Dr.U has found that skin thickness relates much more closely to graft transaction than the straightness or curliness of the hair shaft. His Intuitive FUE technology can be adjusted to safely perform excisions on different skin thickness levels to minimize transaction rates to the absolute lowest possible levels.
What factors qualify a person suffering from hair loss to be eligible as a pro bono hair transplant patient at Dr. U’s Hair Peace Foundation hair transplant organization?
The Hair Peace Foundation organization selects pro bono hair transplant recipients based on financial need and the difficulty of the patient’s hair loss situation, as illustrated by Alex’s case described above. The impact of a procedure must produce a significant improvement, not only in terms of the patient’s final appearance but also in their emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being.
Further Reading
References
- “Moles (Congenital Melanocytic Nevi).” Cincinnatichildrens.org, 2017, www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/m/moles-congenital-melanocytic-nevi.
